The announcement and the order
At a Kaamatan crowd in Penampang, Anwar Ibrahim told Sabahans their 40% was settled. He asked people not to argue. He said the payment this year would rise to RM1.5 billion. Nobody argued.
Two months later, RM600 million had arrived and RM900 million had not. To see why, you have to look past the politician and at a single piece of paper.
An order is the document that makes a payment legal. Without one, the money cannot leave the federal account. It does not matter what is announced at a festival. It matters what the order says.
The order in force was published on Aug 27, 2025. It sets Sabah’s payment at RM600 million a year, this year included, and holds it there until 2029. So the June payment was not the first slice of RM1.5 billion. It was the whole of what the order allows. The other RM900 million has no order behind it, so it sits in Putrajaya.
Why the figure sat still for 48 years
This is the pattern for the whole story. Every figure that Sabah has actually received has an order behind it. When Sabah joined Malaysia in 1963, the deal was simple. For every extra ringgit collected in the state, 40 sen would come back. The two governments were meant to meet every five years to update the figure. They met in 1969, then not again until 2022. For decades the payment stayed frozen at RM26.7 million, fixed by an old order, while the money collected in Sabah kept climbing.
The court agreed, then paused its own ruling
The court saw the problem. On Oct 17, 2025, Justice Celestina Stuel Galid ruled the failure to meet and update the figure unlawful. She gave both sides 90 days to agree an amount. The deadline came and went. In April the Court of Appeal paused her ruling, saying the job was too big for the time given. The appeal is set for late October. Still no new order.
How much is Sabah actually owed?
So the real question is not whether Sabah is owed. Putrajaya has never argued that it is not, and the payments have climbed over the years, from RM26.7 million to RM125.6 million, then RM300 million, RM306 million and RM600 million. The real question is how much Sabah will finally accept.
Here the gap gets wide. Nobody claims RM1.5 billion is the true 40%. On the federal government’s own maths, the yearly share is around RM4 billion. Sabah’s ministers say RM20 billion. The RM1.5 billion promise sits below even the lower figure. So will Sabah take RM1.5 billion for its 40%? Will it hold out for RM4 billion? Or does it push for far more?
A cheque cashed without prejudice
So far Sabah has kept every door open. It banked the RM600 million and then told its own assembly that taking the money settles nothing. Ishak Ayub said in July that the interim figure was agreed without prejudice. That is a careful phrase. It means Sabah cashed the cheque but has not signed off. The state wants the RM900 million by year end, and it has not said RM1.5 billion is enough.
The 40% becomes a scoreboard
This is where the order stops being paperwork and becomes politics. An election is coming. Sabah and Sarawak hold about a quarter of the seats in Parliament, enough to decide who governs. So the 40% is no longer just a legal claim. It is a scoreboard, and everyone can see what was promised, what arrived, and when.
That scoreboard is the real risk. If Sabah takes the RM1.5 billion but keeps count of the RM900 million still owed, the payment becomes a live grievance to carry into the next election. And a grievance measured in ringgit has a simple logic. Whichever party offers the bigger number, or signs the faster order, earns Sabah’s support. The state does not have to stay loyal to anyone. It only has to keep score.
Why the order matters more than the money
Money can be announced in a day. An order takes a decision, and a decision shows what Putrajaya really thinks the 40% is worth. Until that order appears, Sabah keeps its leverage, and every party knows the price of Sabah’s backing is still being set.
